Photo Mystery

Ready for something mind-blowing?

Okay, then guess what this illustration depicts.

You’re thinking it’s a comet, right?

Actually, this illustration done by NASA shows the tail trailing our entire solar system as it hurtles through space.

Yup.

So the bright round ball you see in the center is not the sun but all our planets in their orbits.

The edges of the larger sphere mark the heliopause, where the sun’s influence ends and interstellar space – the space between the stars – begins.

The IBEX spacecraft has now explored the structure of the long “tail” streaming behind our solar system which enabled this illustration.

So in a sense we, too, are a comet. We, too, are that rare and sudden streak of light across the dark.

Kind of puts things in a new perspective, doesn’t it?